Re: yet another simple SQL question

[Charley Tiggs <lists(at)tiggs(dot)net>]

Most of these commands are available within the online documentation:

http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.2/interactive/functions.html

That said, you might try:

UPDATE mytable SET firstname = TRIM(SUBSTRING(firstname,1,position(' ' 
in firstname)));

Charley

Joshua wrote:
> Ok,
>
> You guys must be getting sick of these newbie questions, but I can't 
> resist since I am learning a lot from these email lists and getting 
> results quick! Thanks to everyone for their contributions.
>
> Here is my questions....
>
> I have a column that looks like this
>
> firstname
> -----------------
> John B
> Mark A
> Jennifer D
>
> Basically I have the first name followed by a middle initial. Is there a 
> quick command I can run to strip the middle initial? Basically, I just 
> need to delete the middle initial so the column would then look like the 
> following:
>
> firstname
> ---------------
> John
> Mark
> Jennifer
>
> Thanks again for all of your help today. Everything you guys have been 
> sending has produced successful results.
>
> Thanks.
>
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